Posts
A sermon from the 5th Sunday of Lent based on John 12:1-8
Most of our readings over the course of this year are from the gospel of Luke but this morning, we have a reading from the gospel of John. The gospel of John starts showing up in our readings a lot around Holy Week and Easter. John was probably one of the later or even the last gospel to be written and was a little like the youngest child that goes kind of rogue. Could be that John was written in a different region, than the other gospels. It kind of marches to its’ own beat. I once heard that by the time John was written, any of the children or babies that might have been blessed by Jesus would have been great-great grandparents if they were still living at all. That would be about the distance between my children’s grandchildren and JFK.
John is particular for a lot of reasons. One of them is that he emphasizes different stories that the other evangelists didn’t tell. In John, we hear about the time that Jesus turned water to wine in the wedding of Cana. We hear that story of Nicodemus, the man who came to find Jesus and ask him questions in the middle of the night. We hear about how Jesus washed his disciple’s feet in the upper room. We also hear the story of his friendship that he had with the three siblings, Lazarus, Mary and Martha. The story of their friendship is cast into the spotlight a couple of times, but there is one time in particular, about a week before Jesus rode through the palms into Jerusalem on the donkey that was pretty moving.
In this story, Jesus had received word that his friend Lazarus was growing sicker by the day, but he didn’t get there in time to save him. When he finally arrived at his friends’ house in Bethany, he found the sisters, Mary and Martha in tears, and he too broke down and started crying with them when he realized that Lazarus had died. Martha tried to hold him back, but Jesus, went anyway to the tomb where Lazarus was buried. And then with all the emotions maxxed, he called Lazarus out of that cave, and somehow, Lazarus stumbled out still smelling of the spices they used to anoint him. It was stunning.
Honestly, it’s a little hard to believe. It was probably hard to believe then just like it’s a little hard to believe now. Which is, itself, a major point with the gospel of John: Belief. John talks about “belief” all the time. “don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God as you believe in me” Or, Jesus said to the Samaritan woman “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me shall not perish but have eternal life.” Belief is also kind of a sticking point with Christians today. Mention you’re a Christian and folks start wondering what you believe or they assume they know. Mention you’re a pastor and it really gets interesting...
Belief. Do you believe? What do you believe? Do you believe the right things? Belief is a big word in Christianity.
I have a friend who grew up in the church but in recent years has wistfully told me, “I just don’t believe the same things as you…” I’m not totally sure that is true, but we’ve never really delved into doctrines.
“Belief” as a noun doesn’t exist in the gospel of John. It is not a thing that you can have. It’s not a list of principles to adhere to. Jesus of Nazareth does not give us an abstract theory of social justice or spell out a theology of the cross for us. Jesus didn’t publish a set of 15 volumes which we must read in all of their fine print and then sign on the dotted line that we accept it. “To believe,” in the gospel of John, means to trust in and abide with God—to reach for God and draw close to God through the highs and lows of life. Although you won’t find the noun “believe” in the gospel of John, you will find the verb “believing.” Believing is something that we do. And Jesus, in John’s gospel--well in all the gospels—is intensely practical and consistently directing us to concrete actions of things to do.
Barbara Brown Taylor makes this connection when she explains how Jesus instructs the disciples to do concrete things like “feed my sheep,” “keep my commandments,” “wash one another’s feet,” or “love one another.” But what, she then asks, does that love look like?
The story of Jesus’ friends, Martha, Lazarus and Mary picks up again a few days after that very dramatic moment with Lazarus. The three siblings are hosting a meal. It’s a dinner party at their house. Martha is in charge of the logistics. She is the one who always makes the evening sparkle. She is the one who wants to make sure her guests are at ease and taken care of. She has prepared the right amount of food and set out the wine for the evening. Martha is serving the people, specifically, the word for “serve” that’s used is “deacon.” (if I pastor people, she is deacon-ing her guests). This is the first display of love that we see that night.
Then, just as everyone is starting to enjoy the delicious meal, Mary comes in holding a small jar. Without saying a word to anyone, she uncorks it and pours the contents over Jesus feet. If folks didn’t realize what she was doing a minute ago, they sure do now because they are flooded with the smell of pure nard.
It is a tender scene but Mary is really out there on the edge of what is acceptable. And as she begins to wipe Jesus’ feet with her hair, there may have been more than one person who raised an eyebrow or reached awkwardly for the water jug. A love so lavish, it was difficult to watch…
It’s Judas who breaks the silence: “Mary, what are you doing! He says to her. You’ve lost your way! with a glance at Jesus, he goes on carefully: this movement that we are a part of is about caring for the poor. Do you know how much we could have sold this oil for?” (you could hear the shame in his voice). “Do you know how many people we could have helped?”
Sounds like his words weren’t entirely honest because in the following verse St. John make a special note of how Judas is, not only the one who manages the community money but is also the one that conveniently skims a little off the top while he’s at it.
Mary’s is there, kneeling at Jesus’ feet and pouring this oil over him which is just how kings were anointed and everyone would have known that. Jesus responded to Judas: “leave her alone. My time here is short,” he said. You see, while, yes, kings were anointed, it was usually on their heads. The dead were anointed on their feet, just like Mary anointed Jesus and Jesus would have also known that as he prepared to head to Jerusalem.
It’s Barbara Brown Taylor who also reminded me that Mary doesn’t actually say anything in this stunning moment. She doesn’t confess a statement of belief that has Jesus nodding in approval at his star pupil. Instead, belief is in her hands. It’s in her hair. It’s in that arresting smell--somewhere between jasmine and mint--that’s in the air. It’s in her bent body as she leans over Jesus’ feet. This is what love looks like. This is her belief on display for everyone to see.
When the gospel was read as a longer story instead of these strange little truncated bites we get each week,
the ancient people would have heard this story continue a few moments later. At the dinner in Bethany, Mary wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair. There is only one other time when this slightly strange word, “wipe” is used in the gospel of John and it pops up a handful of verses later when Jesus, a few days later is now in Jerusalem and in the upper room with his disciples.
In this scene, Jesus ties a towel over his clothes at his waist and then, scripture reads “he poured water into a basin and begin to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.”
If we had heard this story in the original Greek, we would have immediately heard the through line as Jesus knelt at the feet of his disciples and wiped their feet.
We will hear this story on the night of Maundy Thursday, and as it goes, Jesus “came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord are you going to wash my feet!? Jesus answers him, Peter, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
And this is gospel truth for us today.
If Jesus is asking us to do certain things “to feed my sheep,” to “wash each other’s feet” and to “love one another,” sometimes, we do these things when we don’t yet understand. “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” The doing comes before the understanding. We love first and then we believe.
Faith isn’t something that we can achieve. Belief isn’t a goal or a prize that we win. It is a gift that we receive and then we tend to it in community through how we serve each other, and through how we serve folks around us. Yes, of course, our belief can bring us great comfort and solace and that is fine and good.
But, if you’re not sure today what you believe. If you’re not if you believe the right things or if you believe enough to belong around here, take heart, and know that this faith that we cherish is a way of life. It isn’t something we always have to be working out intellectually. The gospel of Jesus is intensely practical. It looks like the generosity of Martha serving her guests, like Mary wiping Jesus feet with her hair. It looks like us serving the people in front of us: our friends, the students we teach, our family, the people in the meeting with us. It looks like feeding God’s sheep and washing people’s feet and loving one another.
Someone can tell us that they love us, but we believe it through how they treat us and care for us and support us.
Being a Christian person should impact the way we live. It isn’t about “believing ideas to be true or false” or “just showing up on Sunday morning.” Our faith is meant to be lived in the streets of the world.
Our belief is in our bodies
In our hands,
in our words,
in our presence,
in our patience,
in our courage,
in our love.
In our hands,
in our words,
in our presence,
in our patience,
in our courage,
in our love.
Now go and live it.
No comments:
Post a Comment